


Mrs. Watson

by f_m_r_l



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-08
Updated: 2012-07-08
Packaged: 2017-11-09 11:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/454878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/f_m_r_l/pseuds/f_m_r_l
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Watson had more than one wife. This one is not Mary by any stretch of the imagination.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mrs. Watson

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Mister Toad for having a first look at this and to [queerlyobscure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerlyobscure) for betaing.
> 
> This story has no intention of looking at whether John Watson had married anyone before Mary, but could explain a certain amount of bouncing in and out of the Baker Street lodgings after Mary's death and Holmes's return.

She was, of course, the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. A closer re-reading of his journals would have revealed that there had been a number of women who were the most beautiful women he'd ever seen. He often had that reaction to women in distress. But when she came to Holmes about her father's murder, Watson hadn't taken the time to review. It may have only reinforced his infatuation even if he had looked at his notes. He had, after all, felt the same thing regarding Mary when he had first met her.

John suffered from streaks of gallantry, chivalry, and romanticism. He knew that about himself – if he hadn't, he had Holmes to inform him, repeatedly – and so the only excuse that he had for not guarding against them was that he, personally, did not see them as flaws. He also had Holmes to remind him of the possible effects of those distractions, but Watson found Holmes's expressed views on the subject cold and (though he'd never say it) rather sad.

After the wedding, John found that – aside from having once been, during a moment of peril, the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen – his current wife was everything Mary was not.

That is, she was insipid.

She was uneducated.

She was convinced that the only genteelly acceptable purpose for sex was a wife's marital duty to provide for procreation. (And she had accidentally let slip during a discussion of some of the young women she labored to reform that, actually, she felt the natural outlet for a man's more sexual nature was... outside of a marriage. It was an excessively old-fashioned idea and he didn't know how she could reconcile her charity work with her philosophy. Surely she wouldn't find it acceptable that the one provided employment for the other.)

She was so firmly wed to convention that Watson had an idle fancy that he should sue for bigamy. 

It had taken him less than three days after the wedding to understand that what he honestly found lastingly attractive was a keen intellect, though fair skin, pale eyes and beautiful hands had much to recommend them. Particularly hands that would reach for him during moments of excitement.

It took him a mere three weeks to think though the implications. There were serious risks involved. But he had always been a gambler.

It took John Watson the longest three months of his life to figure out that, while his wife felt an obligation to provide moral and spiritual uplift within the home, his wife also felt that it was not her place to inquire too diligently as to what occurred outside the home. So long as he fulfilled his duty of financial support and so long as she was able to talk about the evils of drink, gambling, and prostitution (being careful not to make any accusations) whenever John _was_ at the dinner table, she could live with his extended absence. She had her charity work among the unfortunates and the deserving poor to keep her busy. John trusted that she did more for the poor than lecture them, but was unwilling to ask.

It took him four months after the wedding to move again to Baker Street. He still went back to visit his wife upon occasion to keep the scandal down and allow her quota of lectures. Drink, gambling, and prostitution. She never talked about the vice of losing one's heart to a man with penetrating gray eyes, translucently pale skin, and graceful hands that spoke of love with a fluency his words would never match.


End file.
